That's the problem ntitiled - Gove wants us to all aim to this standard, but actually your children are achieving it because they have so many advantages and opportunities outside of school. I'm sure you have taken your dc to places where these events actually happened (plus expensive school trips), have discussed it with them, bought interesting books etc etc. Plus they probably have a loving, stable home, had high quality language from babyhood, are well nourished etc. And they obviously academically able.

A few of the children I teach in my east London state school also have had all of this, and I think could probably cope with this curriculum, I can think of another couple who haven't but are very academically able and are interested in history who would be fine.

However the majority haven't had all of this. Many never leave their local area and don't go on educational day trips other than what we can provide for minimal cost. Many have parents with little English who weren't particularly well educated in their own countries. Some have parents who have been failed by our educational system and have no interest in learning whatsoever. Many have poor diets and live in overcrowded, damp housing. Many don't have their own books because of cost or lack of parental desire to own books. Our local libraries are seriously under-resourced. Some of our children have SEN, and this list represents knowledge that is far removed from their educational needs.

I would love for all my children to be capable of learning all of this, but it isn't going to happen for so many of them. Aspiring to be like prep schools is all very well but there are so many barriers that make it practically impossible.

We also have the same problem with resources in primary schools, Victorians, WWII and post-war Britain are all current popular topics which will become obsolete. There is also currently very little out there aimed at primary pupils for many eras (especially medieval) as they are currently not on the curriculum and so there is no demand. Will we be given funding for training and new resources? I somehow doubt it.

I am a year 4 teacher and the history content has actually made me bloody cross. I adore teaching history....loved it as a child and love getting my kids to be excited and inspired about it.

Yes, there are some cracking bits of history included in there but teaching it chronologically through KS2/3 seems utterly bonkers to me. What person in their right mind thinks that children leaving primary school should know the dates of the 100 years war but not have a clue who Winston Churchill or indeed, Adolf Hitler were? Or Queen Victoria for that matter.

Looks like a guaranteed way to turn a whole generation off history for life.

Recent (ish) history is the most interesting at a young age because it's 'living'. Many children have gps or ggps who can add actual details or who have artefacts. Parents can pass down verbal knowledge from their parents and feel involved. It sets the stage for a more 'dry' style of learning later. Some of those topics would bore me silly and most children will be put off History long before GCSE choices.Maybe Gove was only interested in children rote-learning the dates. I'm sure that's all there'll be time for!

The only possible way to cover this in the time available (effectively <1 hour a week, 40 weeks a year), would be to dictate it while children take notes in their history books. Certainly no time for any other method, such as all the interactive, varied, adapted-to-different-learning-styles, catering-for-SEN teaching which we have been practicing for the last few years. Back to chalk and talk with a vengeance.

And what about mixed-age classes? I am planning to instruct year 5 to cover their ears while I talk to year 6 about de Montfort or Wallace ... otherwise it would spoil the chronology. (And I bet they'll be so fascinated that they will beg year 6 to tell them all about it in the playground.)

I love History, and I did A level History - Medieval World History, and the Tudors and Stuarts.(Back in the days when you sat a final exam - no coursework)

When I was in Junior school (Oooh way back in the early 70's) we learned History following a time line starting at the Romans and following roughly what is set out earlier in the thread.I loved all that. (I know this because I pestered my mum to buy me the same set of books about Roman,Anglo-Saxon and Medieval history that we were using in school ,because they were interesting and had lovely pictures of life in those times!) I don't see why it can't be taught in that way. I didn't learn about the 2nd World War till I was in Secondary school (what would be year 8 now,I think).

I support a chronological based approach, you have no frame of reference for anything without it. It doesn't matter what you leave primary school knowing or not knowing, it matters what you know when you leave education.

There is plenty of social history in there for the person who says there wasn't any! Introduction of the printing press, colonisation of the new world, the peasant's revolt, feudalism.......... I support the changes to the history curriculum.

I find it interesting that the OP is very concerned and yet only talks about History. Its not even a core subject. 1 subject not being to my liking wouldnt make me want to chuck out the whole proposal.

Also they dont have to be taught every era. They simply have to understand the chronology.

I think that list looks really interesting - we studied a lot of it when I was in KS2 (missed some bits and studied others instead). I still remember the projects we did charting the progress through the ages, the roman/anglo saxon/viking/ norman invasions and the ancient Greek and Roman history that started a life long love of these periods.

I suppose it does seem a lot though - but I have no idea what our list would have looked like written out so it's tough to judge.

Yet another reason I am grateful that I live and work in Wales. Our curriculum was changed in 2008. To a skills-based one that specified all the skills in each subject, then suggested a range that the skills could be taught through.

We are facing new literacy and numeracy strategy changes, but not this overhaul.